Spilled Blüd
by Rogue28
Summary: Robin and Batgirl enter the new year and try to make sense of Blüdhaven, Batman, and themselves.
1. New Year, New Blood

Author: Rogue28

Title: Spilled Blüd

Disclaimer: Although I hope and dream of coming to work for DC, this has not yet happened, and these characters do not belong to me. I'm just playing in the universe.

Summary: Robin and Batgirl enter the new year and try to make sense of Blüdhaven, Batman, and themselves.

Spoilers: Through Identity Crisis, and the Robin/Batgirl crossover Fresh Blood.

A/N: While I've read Tim's entire run as Robin and Cass's entire run as Batgirl, I'm still fairly new to the Batfamily. Should I get any of the details wrong, please feel free to correct me. Constructive feedback is always appreciated.

---

**Chapter 1:**

**New Year, New Blood**

Blüdhaven's a bitch. That's my professional vigilante's opinion.

I said that in front of Alfred when he came by to bring me a batch of cookies and to do my laundry. "Really, Master Timothy. Simply because you have moved from Gotham does not mean that you should allow your vocabulary to match your surroundings."

I think that meant he agreed with me.

Penguin is still hiding. The incident at his place with me and Batgirl must have scared him pretty good. He's got to learn that Blüdhaven is different from Gotham. He doesn't have the friends. He doesn't have the protection. And I'm not Batman. I don't have the patience to use Penguin for all the information he has. He's a crime lord. And I want him out of my city.

I sound just like _him_.

I can't tell where he is right now. But he's quiet. Which means something is going to happen and it's going to be soon.

Fifth mugging in a row I've stopped tonight, and it's only eleven-thirty. It's warmer out tonight than it has been, freak weather thanks to El Nino, and the criminals are taking advantage of it.

And now, it looks like two punks are trying to break into a pawnshop. Big surprise. I pull out my bo and a decel line, and nearly jump down before I see her.

She moves like no one else, and within fifteen seconds, both of the punks are down on the ground unconscious. She looks up and sees me, and in fifteen seconds more, she's on the roof.

"You're late," I say.

She looks down at the two lying on the sidewalk. "Busy."

Our patrols intersect in one spot, here. Just so we can catch up, compare notes, decide if anyone is worth a visit from both Batgirl and Robin. "You're hurt," she says, her finger touching my face.

I put the back of my hand to my lip. "Last mugger I caught got lucky, busted my lip. Wasn't paying attention."

Her head cocks to the side, and I wish her cowl didn't cover her entire face. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," I say, brushing her off. "Anything to report?"

"Lots of people out. Rescued a cat from a tree."

Batgirl has the ability to be the most deadly assassin since Shiva Woosan. She's part of an elite crime-fighting vigilante group. She was raised by Cain. And she rescued a cat from a tree.

Well, the Blüdhaven Police Department weren't likely to come to the cat's rescue.

"Anything else?" I ask.

She shakes her head. "Penguin is quiet."

I sigh. "I know. He's planning something, and I don't know what."

"Alfred is coming tomorrow," she says.

"It's not Alfred's day to come."

"Nightwing is…driving him crazy," she says, perching on the ledge.

"Alfred said that?"

She shakes her head again. "I can tell."

"If he's getting on Alfred's nerves, I bet Babs is ready to kill him."

"Bruce banned him from Cave," she says.

"You've certainly been keeping up with events," I say, watching the police car drive by and pick up Batgirl's two burglars.

"I talk to Oracle. And Black Canary, some," she says. "Dick…wishes you would call."

"I don't need Dick to look out for me," I say quietly.

She gets up and shoots out a decel line. "Maybe Dick needs you to watch out for him."

And with that, she's off to continue her patrol. I should finish mine. If Alfred is coming tomorrow, I better have the pizza boxes hidden before he gets here.

---

I climb in my window, completely beat. It wasn't that there was anything horribly difficult tonight, just a lot of stupid stuff. And busywork drives me nuts.

Oracle is still online. Bruce and the JLA are still setting her up a new place, so she's moving around a lot, but the background tonight looks the plane she and the birds have been working out of. "Hey, Boy Wonder. What's up?"

"Too many criminals."

"It's the weather," she says.

"Listen," I say. "Is Dick there?"

She smiles. "Hold on just a sec." She leans back. "Dick?" A pause. "Richard Grayson! Tim's on the phone!"

"Is that for me?" I hear Dick say. "Hey, little bro!"

"Here," I see Babs scoot away from her screen. "I'm going to bed. You boys stay up and talk."

Dick's eyes follow her as she leaves the computer, and I wonder if they've made up yet. "How are you doing?" I ask.

He stretches out his leg in front of the camera. "Healing up faster than you can believe. How are _you_ doing?"

"Okay. Batgirl and I are keeping a lid on the muggings. She rescued a cat from a tree."

"That wasn't what I meant," he says.

"It wasn't what I meant either," I shoot back.

He sighs. I'm not supposed to know what went down with Blockbuster, but there's really no hiding anything from a determined sidekick. And if anybody knows that, it's Dick. "I'm—managing. Tim, listen—"

I hold up a hand. "You don't have to explain or apologize for anything to me, Dick." Because, honestly, what Blockbuster did to Dick's friends isn't all that much different than what Black Mask did to—I wouldn't have stood there and let someone else shoot him. I'd have shot him myself.

And I understand a little bit more why Batman wanted me out of Gotham. And why he sent Batgirl with me.

"What about you?" he says.

"I'm managing," I say, peeling my mask from my face.

"How's your step-mom?" Dick asked.

"Getting better," I say. "She should be out next month. She'll be okay. It's just going to take a while."

"Okay," he says. "Listen, look out for yourself up there? And Batgirl too. Blüdhaven is a lot meaner than Gotham."

I stretch my arm out, feeling the stitches Batgirl put in my back stretch a little. "I know." I sigh. "Alfred's coming tomorrow, and you know he's going to be bright and early. I should get some sleep."

"You do that, kid. Blüdhaven's a bitch on no sleep."

"Thanks for reminding me," I mutter. "Night, Dick."

"Night, Tim."

My bed looks really comfortable right now. But that would require getting up from this chair.

Come on, Boy Wonder. Get moving.

---

My door opens, and before I'm fully conscious, I'm sitting up in bed, my bo out and ready to swing towards whoever is coming in my bedroom at this god-awful hour of the morning.

Alfred just raises an eyebrow at me. "Unless you intend on going without breakfast, Master Timothy, I suggest you put that away." He walks over to the window and opens the shades to let some light in.

"What time is it?" I ask.

"Nearly a quarter after ten," Alfred says, and I realize that he really didn't have me out of the bed at the crack of dawn. It just feels like it.

I set my bo back down. "Sorry about that."

"Do not worry yourself, Master Timothy. It is not the first time I've been threatened with a bedside weapon when I've woken someone up." He sweeps a glance over me. "Nor is it the first time I've seen a vigilante sleep in their costume."

I glance down at myself, and find that I'm still in my Robin outfit and I was using my cape as a blanket. "Oh."

"Indeed," Alfred says. "Perhaps by the time I have finished breakfast, you will find yourself in more appropriate attire to face the day and ready to eat."

"Sure thing," I say, climbing out of bed as Alfred turns to leave. "Hey, Alfred?"

"Yes, Master Timothy?"

"Thanks."

He pauses at the door. "Of course, young sir. If you'll excuse me, I believe Miss Cassandra is at the door expecting her breakfast as well."

---

Cass is already sitting at the table scarfing down a mountain of scrambled eggs when I come out, rubbing my head with a towel. "Morning," I say, sitting down as Alfred gives me a plate.

"Morning!" she says, entirely too brightly. I notice a bag sitting in the corner as Alfred sets down a cup of tea.

"What's that?" I ask, managing to swallow my mouthful and avoid a Valet Death-Glare.

"Laundry," she said, taking a bite of her toast.

"There will come a day when you will have to do your own laundry," Alfred says to Cass. "Perhaps when Master Timothy has a free day, you could impress upon him to demonstrate the use of the washer and dryer installed in your apartment."

She looks at me hopefully. "Sure," I say around a mouthful of eggs. "No problem."

I am Robin, Boy Wonder, Squire to the Dark Knight, Leader of the Teen Titans, Scourge of Blüdhaven, Protector of Gotham. And I am teaching Batgirl how to do her laundry.

Oh, today is going to be just _lovely_.

---


	2. Old Mentors, Old Enemies

Extra Disclaimer: Dr. Seuss was a wonderful man, and I'm glad he wrote _One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, Green Eggs and Ham, and The Cat in the Hat_, as they not only provided me with many memorable years, but helped my brothers and I learn to read. I couldn't resist using his books to help Cass too.

A/N: Thank you to all my reviewers! I'm glad you're liking the story so far, and your feedback has been really helpful! Please let me know what you think…it helps me to be a better writer.

---

**Chapter 2:**

**Old Mentors, Old Enemies**

---

Tim is a stupid boy.

All my shirts are…pink.

He was…frustrated. He was trying to be nice, but I can tell. I told him to forget it, that I would have Alfred help. Alfred will have to teach me. Or Oracle.

Tim is frustrated a lot. I see it when he walks. His shoulders are…hunched over a little, and he sticks his hands in his pockets. His voice doesn't tell…his body does. He thinks he can hide it from Oracle…Nightwing…even Batman. Maybe. But not from me.

I thank Alfred for breakfast and leave.

Blüdhaven is ugly at night. But during the day, the…sun comes out. Things are more…cheerful.

But things are not good. Drug deals…in broad daylight. They have no one to…fear.

They didn't.

But daylight is not a time for Batgirl. Daylight is time for Cassandra. Batgirl will visit here tonight.

I could go home and…train. Watch TV. Nightwing likes to watch TV with me. I can tell when people are lying on the…court TV. We play a game, and he tries to…guess who is lying before I tell him. It makes him laugh.

Robin doesn't laugh anymore.

People are leaving a building. They have books in their hands. The building is a big building. The library?

Batman said I should work on my reading. So I go in.

There are so…many books. More than I think anyone could read in a lifetime. Even Oracle.

I sit down in one of the…islands? No. Aisles. I get a book from the bottom shelf. Maybe these are…better to start with than Tim's books.

Now I am frustrated. Like Tim. My shoulders are hunched over.

Words are stupid. Movement is easier to understand. Movement is…easy for me to understand. I see what people mean.

"Miss?" The lady behind the counter is standing in front of me. "Are you all right?"

This lady is like Babs. A…librarian. Maybe she can help. Babs tried, but she is Oracle too. Maybe this lady won't make fun.

"I'm…fine," I say.

"You sure? Tolstoy can be a little depressing." She looks at the book in my hands. "Especially _Anna Karenina_."

"_Anna_-" I can't even say the…title after her. "I…" I don't say the words loud.

"You don't what?" she says.

"I can't read," I say.

She gets up. She isn't…disgusted with me. Or frustrated. "That was very brave of you to say that."

I look up. Brave…is not saying that I can't read. Brave…brave is fighting in Gotham's gang war. Batman is brave. "Brave?"

"Yes," she says, and she holds out her hand. "It takes a lot of courage to admit when you can't do something yourself. Since you're in the library, I assume you want to learn to read, but if you're going to learn, you're going to have to start with something a little easier than 19th century Russian literature." She takes the book and puts it back on the shelf. "Don't worry. We'll have you reading _Anna Karenina_ and _War and Peace_ in no time. Come with me."

She takes me to the…kid's section. "Here we go. Do you know all your letters?"

I nod. "Good," she says. "What words do you know?"

"Stop," I say. "Peace. Cassandra." And Batman and Batgirl and Robin. But I can't _read_ those. I only know the shapes. It's like…knowing a style of fighting by watching…but not being able to fight.

"Those are good words, Cassandra," she says. "But there is no place to start to learn reading but Dr. Seuss."

"Dr. Seuss?" A doctor like Leslie? Leslie makes…complicated words. I haven't talked to Leslie in a while. She was…mad the last time I saw her.

"Yes," she says, pulling out three books. One is blue, one is orange, and one is yellow. She hands me the yellow one. "Why don't you try to start here?"

I look at the cover. There are fish on it. I look at the words. "O. On. Oney?"

"That's very close, Cassandra!" she says. She is happy for me. "Look for clues in the drawing. That can sometimes be the best way to try."

There is only one fish under those words. And I am a…detective. "One?"

"Very good!" she says. "Go on to the next word."

"F…fie…no. Fi..ssh. Fish? One fish." Reading is hard. But this book has pictures. Tim's books don't have pictures. No…clues.

By time for her to leave, I am on the second page. I have read one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish, black fish, blue fish, old fish, new fish.

I can't sign my name to take the books home. She tells me to come back…tomorrow, and she will help me again. She tells me that if I know…someone with a…library card, I can take books home and read.

Does Tim have a library card?

---

I get ready to leave my apartment. My Batgirl costume is clean and not pink.

Someone calls. Batman.

"Batgirl here," I say.

"I have word that Penguin may be getting ready to try a drug shipment from Blüdhaven to Gotham. I don't want it to get here. You and Robin stop that drug shipment tonight. He'll know where it is."

I nod. "Anything else?"

"Don't let Tim go alone." He doesn't need to say why. I see what he means in his body language, and in Tim's. Tim is still…angry. He might do something stupid.

---

I meet with Tim on the roof again. "What's up?"

He looks at me. I snuck up on him again. He hates it when I do that. "Nothing much. There's a drug shipment that Fish Eddie is moving for Penguin. I'm going to go stop it."

"I'll go with you," I say…and he shakes his head no.

"I can take care of it. You've got patrol. It's just Fish Eddie's gang. It's not going to be anything big."

"Penguin is…involved. Could be more," I say. "I'll go."

He…tenses. "_He_ told you to come with me, didn't he?"

"Yes."

He's sulking now. "I can take care of it myself. I don't need him telling me what to do in Blüdhaven, and I don't need you to babysit me." He leaps off the roof. Cranky.

He gets about two rooftops ahead, and I follow him. Batman told me not to let Tim go alone. And I won't.

He stops at the dock, and I stop too. He looks behind him, but he doesn't see me. I don't think that he…believes that I'm gone. He wants to do this by himself.

He's gotten…reckless. He jumps in without thinking. His bo flies through enemies, but I see those that he does not. I see one with a gun.

No time for thinking. I jump.

I hear him yell. But I am moving, and nothing can stop me. I hit one, kick another.

Fish Eddie pulls out a gun, shoots at Robin. He ducks and I hear him…hiss in pain.

Sirens. Some of the gang has run. Most are…unconscious.

"That'll be Amy and her squad. Let's get out of here," he says.

---

He is tense as I sew up his arm. It wasn't too deep, but it did need stitches. He…glances down at his arm. "Thanks."

"You're welcome," I say, putting the things away. The line is…crooked, but he doesn't care.

He looks out the window…leans one hand against the sill. "I told you not to come after me."

I shrug. "You needed help."

"I could have done it by myself, Batgirl," he says. He's…angry now. "I don't need you or Batman or Nightwing or Oracle looking over my shoulder all the time. I am capable of dealing with this on my own. If you all would just leave me along long enough to do it!"

He's not talking about tonight now. He's talking about…his dad. Stephanie. The other girl.

"Just-just go," he says. He's…quiet now. Ashamed.

He wants me to leave him alone. I understand being alone. I don't know why he likes it. But I leave.

I…suppose asking about a library card will have to wait.

---


	3. Red Fish, Blue Fish

**Chapter 3:**

**Red Fish, Blue Fish**

I tumble out of bed a little after noon. More like, I was having a nightmare and literally fell out of the bed.

My arm is still sore from where the bullet grazed it. Cass is getting better at sewing me up, too, so the stitches are straighter than they have been before.

I get up and pour myself a bowl of knockoff Cheerios. There was a banana around here somewhere yesterday. I suppose Cass ate it when she was over yesterday morning. She always eats all of my bananas.

My milk has gone sour _again_. I swear there has to be something wrong with this fridge. I settle for pouring orange juice over the cereal.

The sun is shining and my breath frosts the window glass. The temperature outside is about twenty-eight degrees and it's the middle of the day. Dirty snow lines the roads from where it was shoved aside early this morning. Finally right for Blüdhaven in January.

Good. Maybe the city will be quiet for a change. We could use a rest.

I glance down at my arm again. Cass barely said a word to me last night when she stitched it up, and while that's not entirely unusual, most of the time she pops out with something random. And she left in silence, too. I usually warrant at least a goodbye.

That is, when I'm not making a complete ass out of myself. I really was kind of a jerk last night.

Scratch that. I _was_ a jerk last night and I know it. No getting around that. I'm man enough to admit when I'm wrong and to apologize.

I munch my Cheerios. I really should make it up to Cass. Maybe a movie this afternoon. She wanted to see something that was out. I can't remember what it was, but I'm fairly certain it was a martial arts movie. She loves those—and then she goes home and takes those completely impossible moves, and does them. Blows my mind.

But what do I expect? It's Cass.

I hate eating cereal with orange juice. I dump what's left in my bowl down the sink, and rinse out the dish before I get in the shower and get dressed.

I should go see Dana. I haven't been in a few days, and it's not fair for me to leave her in that clinic alone.

Come on, Boy Wonder. It's just your step-mother. You're not facing down the Joker.

-

I suppose the hard part about going to see Dana is that I'm never sure how she's going to act. Sometimes, she's talkative and I can't get a word in edgewise. Sometimes she rages, and talks about Boomerang, and where the hell the police were. And sometimes she just sits there and doesn't say a word.

It looks like it's going to be one of those days.

There's cookies sitting on the table beside her chair in her suite, and it looks like my apartment wasn't Alfred's only stop yesterday. And I'm reminded once again that there more casualties in this war than those who had died—those that were unfortunate enough to be left behind.

I talk to her. At least, I try, as it's a bit hard to hold a one-sided conversation. I tell her that I'm doing okay, and that my friend Cass comes over a lot and we eat pizza and Alfred's cookies. I tell her I've found a new band I like to listen to, and that Blüdhaven really isn't so bad.

What she doesn't know won't hurt her for now.

I kiss her cheek before I turn around and leave. I feel guilty. It's _my_ life that made this happen. If I hadn't taken on the mantle of Robin, no one would have had a thought about trying to kill my father. He would have been safe. And we might have been happy.

I shake my head as I pull my sunglasses down from the top of my head to protect myself from the sun bouncing off the remnants of clean snow. Dwelling on the past does nothing. You learn from your mistakes and you move on, and I'll be damned if anything happens to Dana because of who I am. I refuse to cause her anymore pain.

I pull my cell phone out of my pocket and call Cass' apartment. No answer. Well, Bruce didn't trick out my phone for nothing. I track her signal against a map of Blüdhaven.

It looks like she's in the library. Part of the reason she came to Blüdhaven was for me to help her learn how to read, but it looks like she's trying to tackle it on her own. I found her the other day asleep on my couch with _A Tale of Two Cities_ spread out in her lap.

I've got to find her something easier to start with, and the library is as good a place as any.

The Blüdhaven library really isn't anything special. It could be a really good library if the Blüdhaven politicians would unline their pockets and put some money into public works and education. Maybe Robin and Batgirl could intervene on the library's behalf.

But the Blüdhaven library has something none of the other libraries in the world has at the moment, and as I step into the fiction stacks that overlook the kid's section, I see it.

Cass is sitting in the kid's section, cross-legged, _The Cat in the Hat_ open in her lap, one of the librarians leaning over her shoulder and monitoring her progress. I hear Cass sound something out and finish her sentence. "Thing One and Thing Two!" And then she laughs, delighted, whether with her own progress or at Things One and Two, I can't tell.

But I can count on one hand the number of times I've heard Cass laugh. The librarian congratulates Cass, and she keeps going.

I think I know how to make it up to her.

-

My bo flies out, and the only mugger willing to brave below zero temperatures drops to the ground. I hand the woman's purse back to her. "Go over to that store and call the police. And take a taxi home, it's too cold for walking tonight."

She nods and takes off for the store, and I pull myself up to the roof where Batgirl is already sitting and waiting for me.

"Evening," I say. "How are you."

"Okay," she says, her head cocking to the side to study me. "You—" she pauses for a second. "You popped your stitches."

I glance down at my arm. With the cold, I'd barely even realized that they'd popped open, but the warm blood trickling down my arm makes me reconsider. "Do you mind coming over and fixing them later?"

She shook her head no. "We can go now. Nothing's happening."

I almost argued with her. But she's right, as usual. And I'm going to listen to her. I have to promise myself that I'm going to listen when it's important.

"Okay," I say. Besides, I've got a surprise waiting for her, and I want to see her face when she opens it.

We get back to my apartment and I pull my mask off my face. So much warmer in here.

She pulls her cowl off, and sets it aside, rummaging around in my medical stash. "Hey, Cass, I'm going to go change out of this real quick, okay?"

She nods, and I run back to my room, not just to dig out a T-shirt and pajama pants that aren't green, but to grab her present as well. I try to nonchalantly drop it on the couch as I sit down for her to stitch up my arm.

She's quiet for a moment, and I try to concentrate on breathing rather than the stitches she's putting back into my arm. "Tim," she says.

"Yeah?"

"I was…remembered about something."

"Reminded," I correct her.

"Reminded," she repeats. "Right. I was reminded. What is the difference between a journal and a diary?"

I raise my eyebrow to think for a second. "A journal holds, I guess, thoughts and stuff. More like a day to day occurrences. I guess a diary holds more personal stuff. Why do you ask?"

"Batman keeps a journal," she says, tying off one of the stitches. "But Black Canary said today that she'll give me a diary when I learn to write."

"Oh," I say. "Well, you know, you could divide it up. Use your journal for Batgirl stuff, and write in your diary about things that affect you as Cassandra instead."

She rethreads the needle she was using. "But I am Batgirl."

I sigh. "Well, I guess I mean it this way. Batman doesn't record feelings in his logs, right?"

Cass considers this for a moment. "I guess not."

"But Black Canary, if she makes a report for Oracle, has feelings in it all the time?"

She nods emphatically. "Black Canary lets Oracle know what she thinks."

I try not to snicker. "So, Batman's entries would be journal entries, and Black Canary's logs would be more like diary entries, see?"

"Yes!" Cass says, and I see a small smile of satisfaction cross her face at having separated the two words in her mind. "There. Done."

I examine my arm once again. "I'll try not to mess up your handiwork this time. Least I can do is feed you. You up for pizza?"

"Always," she says, and I make for the freezer.

"Why don't you go change clothes while I put this in?" I say. After the laundry fiasco yesterday, I figure that the less laundry Cass has to do, the better. All I did was forget to tell her not to put red things in with her whites. "There's some stuff in the other room."

I preheat the oven and rip open the plastic around the pizza before shoving it into the oven. Cass comes back out of the bedroom dressed in a pair of my old pajama pants and one of Dick's Blüdhaven PD sweatshirts.

"Hey," I say. "That bag over there on the couch is for you."

She practically skipped over to the couch. She's been waiting to see what was in there since I brought it into the living room, I know she has.

Cass pulls out the chocolate bar I'd stashed on top out, and hurries to look deeper into the bag. "Tim—"

I shrug. "I went by the library this afternoon and I thought you might like your own Dr. Seuss books. I just wanted to tell you that I was sorry about the way I acted last night."

"You didn't have to do this," she says.

"I did," I say. "I'm sorry and you needed to know that."

She looks at me. "I know." Her hand falls on my shoulder. "I see it."

Sometimes, I wonder what else she sees.

"I still had to say it," I say. "An apology isn't worth anything without an effort behind it."

She practically tackles me with a hug. "Thank you."

I hug her back. "You're welcome."

The stove alerts us that it's preheated, and I slid the pizza into the oven. We sit down, and Cass starts _Green Eggs and Ham_.

It's been a long time since I've read a Dr. Seuss book. We sit and demolish a pizza and a 2-liter of Zesti between us. It takes nearly an hour and a half, but Cass finishes her book.

She has a huge smile on her face as she slams the cover to the book closed. "I read it!"

"You did," I say, gathering up the paper plates and tossing them and the empty Zesti bottle into the trash. Cass makes for the chocolate bar that I'd included in the bag of books.

She breaks off a piece and generously hands it to me, and I sit down on the couch beside her, and take a bite. "Your turn to read," she says, pulling one of her books from her bag.

"_Hop on Pop_?" I say. I dig further into the bag. "How about this one?"

She squints at the title, and I wonder if she's just concentrating, or if she's having trouble seeing. I'm guessing the former. "T-_The_ Low—Lowracks?"

"_The Lorax_," I say, sitting back on the couch. "This was my favorite Dr. Seuss book as a kid."

She settles back, and I open the book and begin to read, and for once, Robin and Batgirl are gone, and Tim and Cass can just sit and enjoy a good book.


	4. Old Secrets, New Mysteries

**A/N**: This is your spoiler warning. I just got the new Robin (134) and Batgirl (60), and since it didn't really screw up anything I was working on here, I decided to add them in here. So, if you haven't read those and you care about being spoiled, do NOT read this chapter until you do! **As far as the timeline goes**: Assume that Robin and Batgirl just took place right before Chapter 1. Cause it mostly fits with the story.

Huge thanks to my reviewers! You all are the greatest! Especially ghostninja85—there's something in here for you. :)

**A/N 2**: Sorry about the long wait, RL has been crazy and Cassandra would NOT behave.

**Chapter 4: **

I wake up on Tim's couch again. We read _The Lorax_ and the Butter Battle book, and watched part of a movie on…television. I push the blanket off and sit up to find a cup of tea being held over my shoulder. "Good morning, Sleeping Beauty," Tim says.

"Good morning," I say, taking my tea, and he smiles.

"What's on your agenda for today?" he asks.

"Agenda?"

He laughs as he cuts up a banana for his cereal. I get up and sneak a piece from the bowl before he can stop me. "I meant what were your plans for the day."

"Oh," I say, taking a drink of my tea before taking another banana piece from his cereal. "Alfred is taking me to shop for furniture."

"Your new place, I forgot," Tim says. "I'll have to come over and see it. Is it nice?"

"I love it," I say, taking another sip of my tea. "What's on your…agenda?"

He laughs again, and I watch him. Robin finds a lot of things…funny, but he's moving…differently. Like he's trying to…forget something. Or to push something off. "School's out for the day—something about a water main breaking. So I thought I'd go see Dana and run into Gotham. And I've got AP Chemistry homework too. I may not be back for patrol."

"I can handle it," I say. "Are you okay?"

He sighs and leans his hands against the…counter. "No."

I put down my tea. "What's wrong?"

"Remember when I went to Gotham last week?" he says softly. "They read my father's will."

"Oh," I say, leaning back against the counter. "What happened?"

"Bruce offered to adopt me last week," he says softly. "Officially. But my dad's will says that I have an uncle I've never heard of and that Bruce can't find."

"Aren't you happy?" I say. "You still have relatives."

"Yes and no," he says. "Sure, I'm glad I'm not the only Drake left. But I don't understand why I was left to some uncle I've never known and not to Dana. I mean, did Dad not trust her with me or something?"

He's getting angry now. I see it in his back, his arms. And then it all suddenly lets go, and the grief comes back and he's not trying to push it off anymore.

Words don't help. I don't know what to say. Words can't make this better. So I put my arms around him and lay my cheek against his back and hold on to him.

He covers my hands with one of his and takes a deep breath before turning around. "Thanks. I'm sorry I dumped all that on you."

"It's okay," I say, letting go of him.

He moves back to his cereal, and I steal another piece of the banana. He finally gives up and just gives me the rest.

-

Tim drops me off at the restaurant Alfred and I like to eat at before Alfred takes me shopping for new furniture. He waves at Alfred before taking off. "Miss Cassandra. I trust you are well this morning."

"I'm good," I say as we walk across the street.

"And Master Timothy?"

Sometimes, I don't know what to say. But Alfred can read movement a little and I shrug. "Ah. Of course. He is on his way to Gotham?"

I nod, and Alfred knows. Alfred knows everything, I think. Batman and Oracle are smart…they can figure things out. But Alfred knows what's…important.

Alfred knows that white couches are not good for living rooms. He says they attack…attract dirt. I don't like anything else in the shop, so we walk around some more.

I see a shop and Alfred and I go in.

Alfred helps me move my new furniture in and we push the new couch into place. I got a coffee table and two end tables and two lamps that don't match and a bookshelf. I flop down on my couch. "I love it."

Alfred looks down at the couch. "Well, now that it has properly been deodorized, I should hope so." I don't know what that word deodorized means. I'll have to ask Tim.

We finish, and Alfred dusts his hands. "Well, Miss Cassandra, I should return to Gotham. You are satisfied with your furnishings?"

"Yes," I say, getting up and giving Alfred a hug. "Thank you."

He smiles. "You are most welcome, Miss Cassandra."

He leaves and I sit back down on my couch and prop my feet up on the coffee table. Not quite right. I move the coffee table back a little, and put my feet back up. Perfect.

I find my Dr. Seuss books and put them on the bookshelf…neatly, like Tim's. They look nice.

It gets dark early now—which means I can start work early.

-

I prowl by Penguin's house. I've made two patrols now, mine and Robin's. But it's still too early to go in, and I want to know what Penguin is doing.

I'm careful—I'm not here to fight tonight. Penguin has put more…security around his house, but I see them. They can't see me.

There's a window in the roof of Penguin's office, and I can see in. Penguin is talking on the phone, but I can't see his mouth and I can't hear what's going on. I'll have to ask Tim about that too—I need to be able to hear.

Penguin is upset about something. He's walking around waving his arms. I think it's about us. Then he stops waving his arm and gets serious.

I get around on the other side of the window to see more. He looks…satisfied. Like he's settled something.

He turns around and I can see his face, and I understand. He's sending someone else after us. I wish I knew who.

I have to get one of those things that lets me listen in.

"Get up!" a voice says.

"Get down," I say back, and with two moves, he's unconscious. Penguin should hire some more help.

Well, I suppose he has now.

The moon is up in the sky now, and the clouds are clearing, and I leave. One more turn around the city, and I'm going home.


	5. Dark Days, Dark Nights

**A/N**: Thank you for all your reviews! I'll try to update more frequently than I have been—RL got a bit in the way the last few weeks. Midterms are coming up for me as well, but I promise not to study too hard.

**Chapter 5**: **Dark Days, Dark Nights**

I hate chemistry.

Well, I suppose that technically isn't true. I hate my AP Chemistry class. I don't really have any feelings towards chemistry itself.

My teacher doesn't help, just keeps lecturing on hydrogen bonding. Bruce taught me all this a long time ago—it was stuff I had to know and had a handle on years ago. So I nod off.

"Mister Drake!"

I jump and hear my classmates snicker. I can't stand these people, I really can't.

"Yes, sir?" I say, once my heart quits pounding.

"Would you care to tell us what's wrong with the equation on the board?"

I look around him. "It's not balanced."

He kind of looks surprised, but I'm too tired to care what he thinks. He's a nice guy, though, the only teacher I have that's not walking on eggshells around me. "Very good." He goes back to lecturing, and after class, I go looking for caffeine to keep me awake through the rest of school.

By the time I get home, I'm exhausted, but Cass apparently climbed through my window and is waiting for me. "We have a problem," she announces.

I drop my backpack and head for the fridge for a Zesti. Ah, caffeine. I take a sip first. "What problem?"

She's got a box of those sugar Valentine hearts. Damn it, I thought I hid those better. "Penguin put a hit out on us."

I sigh. "Great."

She perches on the top of my couch and munches on one of the candy hearts. "I couldn't find out who it was. Do I have a…listening thing?"

"A microphone?" I ask. "Yeah, I've got an extra one around here somewhere."

"We should bug Penguin's office," she says.

"Yeah," I say, not really listening to her.

She stops talking and hops off the couch. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," I say. I've already spilled my guts to her once.

"No, you're not," she contradicts me.

"Still no sign of my uncle," I say. "Bruce and I were trying to figure something out."

She looks at me, then holds out the box of candy. "Have a heart."

I kind of snort and take one. "Thanks."

She smiles, looking over to read the printed message. "Buh-e. Be—Min?"

"Be mine," I say, letting her take another look at it before popping it in my mouth. "I'm going to go take a nap."

"You have housework," she says, pointing at my backpack and I laugh. "Homework," I say. "Housework is chores."

"Oh," she says.

"I'll do it later," I say, shrugging it off. I don't mean to be rude to her about it, but I really have to get some sleep. I didn't sleep last night—too many things on my mind, and I didn't even have the benefit of being exhausted from a night out as Robin.

I wake up, sweating, three minutes before my alarm goes off. I hate nightmares, especially this one that keeps coming back. I had it for a while, but it went away. The night Bruce offered to adopt me, they came back, and they've been worse.

Cass spent the night on my couch again the night before last and I had the nightmare. I had to get up and check to make sure she was still there and breathing—I suppose that's why I went to Gotham yesterday. I could have just called Bruce, but I wanted to see him, and Dick, just to assure myself that they were okay.

I'm not going to be able to do this every time I have a nightmare.

Maybe I need to see a shrink.

Yeah, that'll work. I can see that conversation now. "What can I do for you, Mr. Drake?"

"Well, Mr. Psychiatrist, sir, for one, I'm Robin, Boy Wonder, my current father figure is Batman, who also happens to be Bruce Wayne. My best friends are Nightwing, Batgirl, who I'm teaching how to read, and Oracle, the greatest source of organized information in the world, plus the Teen Titans. My father is dead because a crazy woman hired a two-bit rogue to kill him, and my girlfriend died because she was too damn stupid to listen to Bruce and stay out of the gang war. So I moved to Blüdhaven, the cesspool of Gotham to continue my destructive lifestyle while my stepmother is in a hospital to deal with her grief. So, Doc, can you fix my head?"

They'd throw me in Arkham.

I pull out my costume. The might throw me in there anyway if they caught me running around in this—perhaps not in Blüdhaven, but Gotham certainly would.

Sometimes I wonder if Robin should exist. I'm not talking about giving up crime-fighting, but as I fit my mast to my face, I have to admit that I'm not very intimidating.

I sigh, wrapping my cape around my shoulders. This is still ten times better than that outfit that Dick used to wear with the pixie boots and the short pants. Time to get to work.

Trouble seems to be at my front door as an angry boyfriend shoves his girlfriend up against the wall. I barely even swing on the de-cel line as I drop down. "Let her go."

He sneers at me. Wrong move. I could drop him in two moves, but I have very little patience for abusers. I hit him in the face twice. Pretty boy's nose is broken for sure, and with one blow to his solar plexus, I make breathing even more painful. I grab a handful of his hair. "Let me tell you something. You don't ever hit a woman. If you do, I will find you and you will not get away as easily as you did tonight." I let a bit of Batman's gravel creep into my voice. "Understand me?"

He nods, blubbering, before running off. I turn to the girl. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," she says hatefully. "And I would have been fine. Now I've got to go clean him up." She stalks off.

This is a thankless job. I think it again when I stop a drug deal on Ninth Street and the kid pulls a knife on me, when I make my way towards a burglary in progress and get shots fire at me, and when I step into another public domestic violence case. At least she was grateful that time and promised to go to a battered women's shelter. The shelter was on the other side of town, so I strayed slightly from my patrol.

This is Cass' side of town, but I don't see her swinging between buildings. For all I know, she could be somewhere that I usually work.

But her words keep echoing in my head, that Penguin has put out a contract on our heads, and I remember my nightmare.

I can't help worrying. It's in my nature. I don't have my comm with me at the moment—it's been fritzing out and I haven't gotten a new one from Bruce yet. I shouldn't have really gone out without it, but with Oracle not talking into my ear on a nightly basis anymore, I didn't think it would be a big deal. Which still doesn't solve my problem of finding Cass.

I pull out my locator, hoping she hasn't had a fit of rebellion and yanked it out of her outfit. She hasn't, of course—she doesn't have a reason to do so. She's only a few blocks away and I pull out a de-cel line to go meet her.

That's when I see it. A piece of straw, floating down, wafting on the wind.

There is no reason straw should be on top of a Blüdhaven roof in the middle of winter.

Scarecrow.

I put my breather in my mouth, not taking any chances as I whip around to see a flash vanish across the roof with a wicked cackle. Damn.

He's not supposed to be in Blüdhaven. There's been no sign of him for weeks now, and with that damn comm broken, even if Bruce knew Scarecrow was here, he couldn't have told me.

I keep following him—he's got a fair lead on my now, and I've almost lost sight of him. I stop for a second, taking in my surroundings. I rip my locator out. Thank God, Cass is only three roofs away.

"Batgirl" I yell at the top of my lungs. "Look out! Scarecrow!"

I keep hollering the closer I get, but I stop on the next roof in horror.

Cass is kneeling, staring at her hands in horror and I hear her heart-breaking sob. Scarecrow is practically beaming, and he lifts his hand to pull her mask off, the other holding a jagged looking knife.

Bruce congratulated me on my improvement with the batarangs. I pull every bit of skill I can manage, and throw.

Scarecrow drops his hand, clutching it with the other as blood spurts out of it. Nobody messes with one of our own. Nobody. And Scarecrow is about to find out what that means.

I fly across the rooftop, my bo out and ready, and Scarecrow backs up. I see fear underneath that mask of his, and I have no intention of letting his fear abate. I'm too angry now to care about measured responses. He's damn well lucky that Bruce isn't here.

I could have taken his head off if I'd swung a bit harder, but as it was, he was in too much pain from his hand to duck the blow I did throw at him. For one brief second, I considered throwing his body off the roof, but tied him up instead.

I finally look at Cass. She's doubled over in horror, just staring at her hands. Her sobs have quieted, and she's not talking, almost as if she's lost the ability she'd gained.

"Cass," I say, lifting up her head. "Cass. Look at me."

She does, but shakes her head no, over and over again, her focus returning to her hands. Scarecrow is still unconscious, and I gently pull her mask from her face. Tears are streaming down her cheeks, and I see the terror and hurt and guilt in her eyes. She's too paralyzed by whatever it is he's made her see to even move.

I pick her up, cradling her in my arms. Her place is closer for the moment, and slipping her mask back over her face, I swing down to take her home.


	6. Closed Doors, Opened Hearts

**A/N—**I know that some of you would like me to update more frequently—unfortunately, my writing time has been drastically cut, what with midterms, my mom being gone and the simple fact that I'm carrying twenty credit hours. Fortunately, spring break is next week (yet it snowed today), so hopefully it will get better here soon. Also, this chapter is deliberately short—for what I have planned for Tim's chapter, it was necessitated.

**Chapter 6: Closed Doors, Opened Hearts**

Time went to bed to sleep, and I stare at his backpack for a minute. He's…what did Babs call it? Bruce does it too—oh, yes, brooding. School bothered him today, too—I saw it when he threw his backpack in the floor. He's frustrated again, like he can barely hold everything together. I worry. Tim is my friend and I don't like seeing him unhappy. He used to be happy. He would laugh and joke.

I miss that Tim.

I creep over to his bedroom door and listen. I hear him snore and am glad he's getting some sleep. I leave the rest of the candy on the table for him when he wakes up and go home.

I go downstairs to my…basement and turn on some music and work out. Black Canary gave me this CD. She said, "Pink Floyd is a necessary part of everyone's education." I don't know why Oracle started laughing. I have another CD that Stephanie gave me, but I haven't listened to it in a long time. It's better for working out, though. I still don't listen to it.

Oracle calls. "Batgirl, here," I say.

"How are you doing?" she asks.

"I'm good," I say. "How are you?"

"We're doing fine," Huntress says with a smile as she leans over Oracle's shoulder. She is…happier now that I've seen her in a long time. "We're heading out," she says to Babs.

"Sure," Oracle says. She looks back at me. "I was just calling to check in for a moment."

"I'm good," I say. "Tim is okay. Dick and Alfred really miss you. Haven't seen Batman in a while, but he misses you too. I see it. You should come back."

She sighs. "I can't. Not now anyway."

I don't understand, but I…trust Babs. She knows what she's doing, or she thinks she does, so I leave her alone.

"You said Tim was doing okay?" she says. She is worried too.

I nod. "As good as he can. He swears a lot more now. And he's frustrated. A lot."

Babs makes that funny face she does when she's thinking hard about something. "I wonder if I should ask Leslie to go see him."

"No," I say. I don't know why that would be a bad idea, but I know it would be. "Find his uncle."

"His uncle?" Babs says.

"Ask Bruce," I say. She doesn't like that idea, but I think she'll do it anyway.

Black Canary pops her head into the picture. "Is that Pink Floyd I hear? Atta girl."

I smile at her. "I thought you were leaving," Oracle says.

"We were. But I had to come tell Batgirl hi."

"Would you get moving?" Oracle says and laughs. Black Canary winks at me and leaves. "I better get monitoring those troublemakers. Be careful, and look after Tim for me, okay?"

"I will," I say. She signs off, and I sit for a moment. I'm not the only one con—con—worried about Tim.

I get dressed. Tim will be awake soon and be out too. I grab an extra comm to take with me since Tim's is broken, and I'll give it to him later.

I get out on the street early, watching around for trouble. Penguin's hit…bothers me. I don't like not knowing what's going on.

I almost called Batman this afternoon. I almost decided to let him know what was going on. But we've been trained well. We know how to take care of ourselves. And Blüdhaven is our city now. Gotham belongs to Batman. Blüdhaven belongs to Batgirl and Robin. And it's our duty to take care of it now.

Nobody escapes Batgirl. I swing down, knock down the mugger before he leaves the shadows to attack the lady passing by. She never knows he was there.

I stay on my rounds, break up two drug deals. There's not much that's going on in my side of town. My snitch told me that someone is going to try another drug deal down here tonight.

I sit up on the roof and wait.

I'm good at waiting. My father taught me…patience.

I hear a voice yelling at me from across the roof. "Batgirl! Batgirl!"

The voice is deep, and Batman appears. "Batgirl."

My hand comes up—to his throat—

He lies on the ground in front of me—what have I done?

Oracle.

Nightwing.

No.

Black Canary.

Huntress.

No.

Alfred.

Robin.

"Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

My hands—the blood. No! No, I couldn't have! I did. Robin! NO!

"Cass. Cass. Look at me."

No. Robin is dead. I killed him.

Dead.

No—words.


	7. Holding On, Holding Tight

**A/N**: No, spring break didn't come early…but I had little to do in class and a well-defined vision of what this chapter needed to be. Oh, I have seen Themed Response, it's what started me writing Tim and Cass in the first place. And no, this chapter is not entirely Tim, but Alfred has valuable insights to offer. :) SPRING BREAK HAS STARTED!

P.S. Sorry about the line breaks. I had them in here, but they keep taking them out, hence the long, ugly line breaks we have now. Sorry. 

**Chapter 7**: **Holding On, Holding Tight**

I put Cass down on the couch in her house, and pull off her mask. Tears are still leaking out of the corners of her eyes, and she curls up into a little ball, shaking. I've only seen her cry once before.

I can't think about that now. I step into her bedroom, and grab her bedspread off the unmade bed. It's bright pink, not a color I normally associate with Cass.

I bring it back into her living room and wrap her up in it. I double-check that all the curtains are closed before I come back to her. That was a very Bruce-like thing to do.

Cass is still crying. I've never been good with crying girls, but there's nothing I can do but make her comfortable until the gas wears off.

That's not true.

"Cass? Cassandra," I say, trying to get her attention. "I'm going downstairs for a second, okay?"

She doesn't see me or hear me, and she's definitely not enough in reality for me to leave her up here alone. I pick her up, cradling her in my arms again. I can't get over how light she is. For someone with as much power as she has, she weighs next to nothing.

I lay her down again on the cot in her cave, and brush the tears from her face, keeping an eye on her. I need backup, and not the kind Bruce can give.

"Master Timothy!" Alfred says, appearing on Cass' screen, his feather duster in hand. "I didn't expect you to be calling from Miss Cassandra's cave."

"Can you come up to Blüdhaven?" I ask. "We've had a run-in with Scarecrow and Cass got the full effect of the fear gas."

I see Alfred's frown cross his face. "I will be there as soon as I can. Have you informed Master Bruce of the situation?"

I shake my head. "Not yet, no." I kind of hope I don't have to. Please, Alfred, volunteer to do that for me, please.

"I'll see to it," Alfred says. "Keep watch over Miss Cassandra until I arrive."

"I will," I say, and Alfred signs off.

* * *

I must admit when Master Timothy called, I was quite surprised. No one should have been able to sneak up on Miss Cassandra, certainly not the Scarecrow whom Master Bruce has described as less than stealthy. 

Master Timothy looked distressed enough that I saved him the duty of informing Master Bruce. I wonder how this is affecting him as well.

"Batman, come in please," I say.

I wait a moment before I hear the Batman's growl and I wonder again at my failure to Master Bruce that he felt compelled to take this mantle upon himself. "Go ahead."

"I am leaving for Blüdhaven. Batgirl has had an encounter with Scarecrow. Robin has called and requested my assistance."

Another silence. "I will handle Scarecrow. Look after Batgirl—and Robin. Call me later." I hear a click, leaving me in the silence of the cave.

The drive to Blüdhaven has been one I have made many a time since Master Dick relocated there, but I believe I have rarely been as reckless regarding speed as I am this night. Master Bruce, Master Dick and Master Timothy, I all consider to be my sons to some extent. But Miss Cassandra is like my daughter, and I have been told there exists a bond between fathers and daughters. If so, it might explain my haste this night.

I arrive at Miss Cassandra's and make my way downstairs, stopping as I enter her domain.

Master Timothy is sitting on the cot, holding Miss Cassandra to him, whispering comfort. Her head rests against his chest and tears are coming from her eyes. Master Timothy has his own eyes closed, and I see a tear escape from his eye as well as he, perhaps unconsciously, presses his lips to her forehead.

I step forward, making my presence heard, and Master Timothy looks up. He carefully stands, gently laying Miss Cassandra back down and seeing that she is settled before coming over to me. "I'm glad you're here. Thanks."

The dark circles under his eyes concern me greatly. "It is of no consequence, Master Timothy. How is Miss Cassandra?"

He rubs his eyes. "Still crying. She's not talking. Not even a sound."

"She may have reverted to her former lack of language skills," I tell him. "A defense mechanism to help her cope."

He looks over his shoulder at her, wrapped up in that hideous pink blanket she adores, rubbing his face again. "Yeah, I guess."

"Perhaps you should get some sleep," I suggest. He shakes his head.

"There's no way I could sleep after this," Master Timothy answers. He looks back at me. "Did you talk to Bruce?"

"I did. He intends to handle Scarecrow himself."

Master Timothy sits down in the chair before Miss Cassandra's console. "I almost could feel sorry for Scarecrow. Suppose he'll come over here?"

"I'd imagine so," I say, moving over to Miss Cassandra. Her tears have ceased, but she remains lying there with a terrified expression on her face, one of sorry and horror and I damn Scarecrow with ever fibre of my being for doing this to her. Her breathing appears to have normalized. I turn back around and see that Master Timothy has leaned over, holding his head in his hands. "Master Timothy?"

He looks up, and I am nearly as alarmed over the look in his eyes as I am over Miss Cassandra. "I didn't have my comm. It's broken. I could have warned her." He rises, his face stony. "This is my fault."

He is dangerously close to what Master Bruce becomes some days. "And I suppose Scarecrow holds no responsibility in this matter?"

I see the bit of Master Bruce's brooding leave in the smile that crosses his face. "You're right, as always, Alfred."

"I'm please that you recognize that fact, Master Timothy," I say. "If you'll excuse me, I'll go and prepare some sustenance since you seem determined to stay up the night."

When I come back down, I notice Master Timothy is sitting on the cot, his back up against the wall, holding Miss Cassandra, and both of them are sound asleep.

Setting down my tray, I take a sandwich for myself and wait for day.

* * *

I hear Alfred moving around and a low rumble that sounds like Bruce's voice. Alfred's gentle tenor answers back.

I should open my eyes. But there's a warm comforting weight snuggled up against me, and I really don't feel like moving.

I open my eyes anyway, to find my vision obscured by a mass of dark hair. Cassandra's curled up against me, and she's asleep. I brush her hair aside, carefully sitting up so I don't disturb her.

"You're awake," Bruce's gravelly voice says, and I can tell he hasn't slept.

"What time is it?" I ask quietly, trying to keep my voice down.

"Nearly eleven. I called your school and told them that you were sick," Bruce says.

"Sounds good," I say. I have chemistry homework that was due, but now I'll have plenty of time to do it.

I hear a soft noise behind me, and Cass rolls over. Her eyes open and she blinks a few times. "Morning," I say, trying to smile. "You feeling better?"

She flies out of the bed, and I find myself suddenly wrapped up in a huge hug. She gives a choked sounding sob.

"Hey, it's okay," I say. "Cass?"

She brushes what I hope is the last tear she sheds over this away. "Sorry." Her eyes fall on Bruce and Alfred, and they find themselves with armfuls of Cassandra too.

"Well," Alfred says, with barely a hitch in his voice. "Who is ready for breakfast?"


	8. Strange Mornings, Strange Evenings

**A/N**: Thanks for holding on for this chapter—it really was a bitch to write. Big thanks to TorontoBatFan for being specific in the review—I did intend for Tim to take the spring semester off, but when I added in the comic continuity, he ended up going back to school, so I'm operating under the assumption this took place directly before the semester started. And of course, thanks to everyone else—your enthusiasm keeps me going.

Also, I would be forever grateful if someone will tell me how to put line breaks in like I did in the first chapter without the bloody quickedit taking them out. Hence the x's for line breaks. 

So without further ado,

**Chapter 8: Strange mornings, Strange evenings**

Tim is driving me crazy.

I'm glad he's here, but he's…hovering.

He didn't even go to his apartment after school. He came here. I'd been alone since Alfred went home this morning.

The nightmares were bad. Tim must know what it's like. I can't talk about it. Alfred didn't make me. He left me alone and made cookies and didn't make me talk.

Tim won't shut up. He's not even talking about anything important. Just fixing something to eat in the kitchen and talking about school. He's so worried. But I'm Batgirl. I can take care of myself.

He comes into the living room with a handful of cookies and a glass of milk. "How was your day?"

I shrug. "I slept all morning. Alfred made breakfast and he went home. I worked out this afternoon."

He just nodes. "Nightwing is patrolling Blüdhaven tonight."

"That's stupid," I say. "I don't like sitting here."

"You know how he is," Tim says.

"I'm not some little girl!" I say. The words won't come out of my mouth. "I'm just fine." I stand up. "I can…handle this. No one…believes me. Not Oracle! Not Batman!"

"Hey," Tim says, standing up. He puts a hand on my shoulder. "I believe you. And you're not the only one being sidelined for the night."

I turn away. "I don't need you watching me either."

"Is that what you think I'm doing?" he says. "Damn it, Cass—I'm not keepking tabs on you. And I know you can handle it."

"Then why are you here?" I yell back.

"Because maybe I need to be here so—" he stops his yelling and turns around, leaning against the chair. I watch him—see everything that he's feeling.

I give him a hug from behind. "I'm sorry."

He turns around and hugs me back. "I—" his voice sounds funny. "I just can't lose anyone else."

I hug him tighter. Scarecrow made me see Robin die—and I'd been the one that killed him. I don't want to lose him either. So we stand there and hold on and are glad we're both alive.

He finally lets go and brushes my hair behind my ear. "We okay?"

I nod. "We're okay."

xxxxxx

(One day later)

Back on the job. I feel better out here than I do at the house. What was it Babs says? Something about getting back up on a horse. I don't get it.

If I'm awake, I'm not having nightmares. I had one last night, and Tim came and woke me up. He'd been sleeping on the couch, and came in and sat on the edge of the bed. He gave me a hug, told me it would be okay and laid down on top of the covers and talked to me until I went back to sleep. I woke up this morning holding onto him, and he had an arm around my waist.

It was weird.

But now, I'm flying over Blüdhaven. I can see Gotham's lights…glitter from here, and I don't feel stupid anymore.

I stop when I see him—Penguin, with a blonde chick on his arm, leaving through the back door of his new Blüdhaven club.

I swing down before I think about it. Penguin has only two guards, and I wonder why he didn't expect a visit from me. The blonde girl screams and I knock her unconscious.

Penguin…squawks. I shove him up against the wall.

"You sent Scarecrow after us," I say.

"No!" Penguin says. He's lying. I see it.

"Do you want to work in Blüdhaven?" I say. "Batman lets you get away with things because you give him information. Robin and I will let you do it. But if you send another person after us, you will be back in prison. Got it?"

He understands. I see it when he nods, but I know something is going on in his head. I don't think he's going to actually leave us alone, but it might give us some time. He sent Scarecrow after us—I don't know who might be next, but Robin and I will have time to plan, which is what we really need.

I let Penguin go and head back up to the roof. Robin is waiting for me. "Feel better?"

"Your turn," I say.

He laughs, looking over the edge of the roof. Penguin is picking himself up, and kicking his guards. "I think you scared him enough for one night."

I just stare down at Penguin. It makes me angry to see him, but no one can hold him for actual crimes—he's too smart for that.

"Want to piss him off?" Robin says. "He's got another drug shipment coming in on the docks tonight. I could use some help. Or just some company."

He's so open. He doesn't need my help—I see that, but he does want me to come. It's weird. Like this morning. But it's nice.

This morning was nice too. "Okay. Sounds good. Let's go."

He smiles at me. "Cool."

xxxxx

Fighting feels good. I yank one guy's head down, slam my knee into his nose. He yells and wanders backwards. Behind him, Robin's bo is flying through Penguin's men, smacking them down.

"Get away from that container," I hear Robin bellow, and I see one guy go running to grab one of the containers. It looks like a fridge on it's side. I drop the guy with the broken nose, and chase after the other one. One blow to the back of his head and he falls.

Robin has finished with the rest of them and comes over as I open the top of the fridge. The smell of death and dried blood hits us, and Robin slowly backs away, his eyes on the body in the cooler. I take a closer look.

It's Captain Boomerang. The guy that killed Robin's dad. "What is Penguin doing?"

"Maybe he's going to have Boomerang stuffed," Robin said. He looks a little green. "Like he did Blockbuster."

I stare at the body in the crate. They must have stolen it from the Gotham morgue and been taking it to another freezer. But why did they go for this crate instead of the ones with the drugs?

The same question is going through Robin's mind, and I don't want to think about what else I see. His arms and shoulders are tense and he is just barely shaking. So I shut the cooler and shove it into the bay.

Robin looks confused. "Amy's coming with the police to get the drugs," I say. "Batman can pick up Boomerang to see if they're hiding anything."

He nods. Neither of us have the stuff to deal with this, and even if we did, Robin shouldn't have to do it.

He looks tired now. He had been ener…full of energy. "Come on," I say. "Let's go home."


	9. Shining Light, Suffering Darkness

Sorry for taking so long, I'm suffering from writer's block. Feed me plot bunnies! This kind of takes into account the events in _Flash_ #220, but if you haven't read it, Bruce explains it all to Tim later on. ;)

**Chapter 9: Shining Light, Suffering Darkness**

Sometimes, more often, I wonder if it's worth it. Sometimes, I wonder if I should just give up, hand over the cape and the mask and go back to some semblance of a normal life.

I think Bruce would actually understand. I think this time around, he might even support the decision. After everything that's happened—I think he'd let me.

But then I remember what happened the last time I tried. Stephanie was Robin for a little while, and Bruce fired her from the job, and it contributed to getting her killed. We knew she was too impulsive—we knew it.

Good things did come out of it for a while, though. For a very short time, I had my father's understand and his respect. For just a little while, we understood one another perfectly. And then because I was Robin, he died. And now his killer's body is lying in a freezer at the bottom of the river waiting for someone to come pick it up and figure out what Penguin wants with it—if he wants anything more than to take him to the taxidermist like he did Blockbuster.

For all I care, the fishes can eat his body.

It's more than he deserves.

Yesterday, I woke Cass up from her own nightmares. This morning, Cass is the one waking me up instead. "Tim? You okay?"

It's still dark outside, only the light she's turned on in the kitchen shining into the room. I let my head thunk back against the arm of her couch. "Bad dream."

She doesn't say anything for a moment, and I sit up. "Sorry if I woke you up."

"It's okay," she says. "I don't have to go to school in the morning."

I try to laugh at her joke. There are circles under her eyes. "You go on back to bed. I'll be fine."

She shakes her head. "I'm awake now. You go back to sleep. You need it more. I'll sleep later."

"I can't," I say, sitting up all the way.

She gives me a push back down on the couch. "Sleep!"

I close my eyes for a second. "Not working."

"Tim!"

I can't help but laugh at her exasperation, and she starts to laugh too. "We're silly," she says.

"Better than being serious at this point," I say.

She looks out the window. "Look. Sun's coming up."

"Yeah," I say.

"What does Babs say?" she says, looking back at me. "Always darkest before morning?"

"Always darkest before dawn," I say quietly, and reach out to brush her hair from her face.

She smiles at me. "It's morning. Night is over."

I can't help but smile back at her, tucking her hair behind her ear, and only one thought goes through my mind—_God, she's beautiful_. I lean forward, putting my hand through her hair, and I'm kissing her, and she's kissing me back. Her hand falls on my shoulder, comes up to cup my face, and I gently pull away—

And am surprised when the hair tangled in my fingers isn't blonde.

She's confused—that much is evident. "I'm sorry," I gasp.

Her hand falls from my face, and I even see disappointment in her eyes. "It's okay," she says.

"No," I say, getting up. "It's not okay. God, I'm sorry." I start folding up my blankets. "I wasn't thinking."

"Tim!" she says, sounding aggravated. "Don't ap—a—"

"Apologize," I say automatically. "No, Cass—I don't want to do this to you."

"To—to me?" She's struggling. "Tim—damn."

Cass swearing? That's new. "Look, Cass. I respect you too much for this. I don't want—"

"You want!" she explodes. "May—may—be—I want!"

What? Her face is all red, and she's trying to get words out, but she can't. "I—I—I saw—I saw you die! I no want to—lose you!"

"Cass—" I drop the blanket I was nervously folding. This isn't fair—I can't use her as a distraction from all the crap going on in my life.

She springs up off the couch, and crashes into me, and suddenly she's kissing me again, her arms around my neck and I can't let her go. It's like having life breathed into me after being starved for air. I've not held anyone in so long—I've not even touched anyone—Dad and Steph are gone—Bruce was never emotional to begin with—Alfred and Dick are in Gotham, Babs is who knows where and Dana is still in the hospital. Right now, Cass is all I have, and this moment, she's all I want. So I stand here, and I kiss her, and for two minutes everything is all right.

I pull away from her and just wrap my arms around her. I have to wonder if we're using one another—just to make ourselves feel better, and if this feels right for all the wrong reasons. I mean, do we even have the right to get involved with someone with our lifestyles? Eventually, this job will kill us all, and if we didn't know that before, we do now. Can we really get involved? Is it fair to leave someone behind to mourn us?

No. It's not fair, and I pull away completely, hoping I won't have to say anything, and that Cass will simply see it. I step back, looking at her flushed face. "I've got to go to school," I say hoarsely.

She nods. "I'm going back to bed." She turns—

"Cass-" I call after her.

She looks over her shoulder, and I feel like my chest is going to explode my heart is beating so fast and my voice is still hoarse. "It's not that I don't want this—I just—"

She smiles at me, a strange smile, almost sad. "I know. I see."

She goes back to bed, and I go to school.

xxxxxx

I go to Gotham that night. Bruce has Boomerang laid out on the table and Alfred discretely closes the curtain around him. "What did you find?" I ask.

"This," Bruce says, his tone halfway between Batman and Bruce Wayne. He hold up a container. "It's highly encoded, from the Rogues in Keystone City."

"Keystone City?"

"The Rogues there are in the middle of what amounts to a civil war," Bruce says. "They were trying to obtain information from Boomerang's brain—Flash says they were attempting to gain tactical information about the other Rogues, and they gave the information to Penguin."

So much for my theory he'd come straight from Gotham's morgue—apparently he'd made a stop in Keystone. I wish Bruce had told me this before now, though. "Why Penguin?"

"He's playing both sides," Bruce says. "Delivering weapons to both sides—several Keystone criminals are showing up in Gotham—Boomerang, Dr. Alchemy." He hesitates, which is not something he tends to do, and when he speaks again, Batman's growl comes out. "The new Captain Boomerang had just arrived in Gotham. He's staying in a hotel by the river."

I feel my fist clench involuntarily. "Who is he?"

"The original Boomerang's son," Bruce says. "I'm going to pay him a visit later."

"And the microchip?"

"Rogue tactical deployments. Interesting bits of information. I've already sent it to Flash. We'll have to stop Penguin before he can send the weapons to Keystone," he says.

"And Boomerang is here to make sure they get delivery," I say. Bruce nods, and I suddenly realize how ironically appropriate this is—Boomerang's son and me.

This job will kill us all.

"Tim—" Batman's voice has disappeared and Bruce remains. He's trying to be fatherly, and I can tell from the way he's fidgeting and the way Alfred is looking at him. "I want you to stay out of it."

"It's too late for that," I say viciously.

"Robin—" the gravel is back. So much for being fatherly, and honestly, I'd rather it was this way at this moment. "It's not a request."

"It is still too late!" I shout. "I've been involved with this since the beginning and I can't let this go, Bruce!"

God, do _not_ cry. My heart is beating faster than it was this morning and the events of the last week have finally caught up with me, and I want nothing more right now than to keep from coming apart at the seams.

Alfred steps in as he always does, bearing a tray of sandwiches and tea. "I think that perhaps cooler heads will prevail on fuller stomachs."

Bruce ignores him, but my anger is suddenly gone like I was a balloon and someone let out all the air. I know perfectly well that I won't do anything—not at least until Boomerang steps foot into Blüdhaven, and then his ass is mine.

"How is Miss Cassandra?" Alfred asks. My mind immediately goes back to this morning, and I try to control a blush.

"She's fine," I say. "She's doing fine."

xxxxxx

Robin has his own reasons to exist now. Used to, I was going to serve my time and go back to a normal life. I figured by the time I found a girl and was thinking about getting married, I'd have contributed to society enough to back away. I never wanted to be Batman. I just wanted to be Robin.

Sometimes, now, I wonder if being Batman would be such a bad thing. Robin isn't incredibly intimidating. I know that, and I have to wonder if being Batman would have kept him safe—if it was the cowl that protected Alfred from being a target and made my dad the target instead. I wonder if maybe someday taking is an option now.

Dick has first crack at it, though. Being Nightwing wouldn't be too bad either. Dick definitely has more of an intimidation factor going on.

I can't do this now, I think, dropping my cape to the floor. I just can't do this now.

I go to sleep, pretending that Cass is in the other room and trying to remind myself of this morning.


	10. Morning Cookies, Afternoon Tea

Dear readers: Thank you so much for holding on, and continuing to hold on, and continuing to hold on! Ne quittez pas, s'il vous plait! I have been deathly ill since the week before finals with disabling attacks of vertigo and migraines, probably caused by hyperthyroidism (I've lost nearly twenty pounds, which while that's a good thing…is kind of strange for me, as I have a really hard time losing weight.). I go see the endocrinologist Thursday, and back to see the neurologist next week, and hopefully we'll be able to get this straightened out without too much more fuss or medication. (I'm more drugged up than a hippie at Woodstock!)

This is Alfred's side of this mess. Cass is just not behaving. And Alfred always behaves. (My boyfriend and I almost came to blows over whether or not Michael Caine was going to make a bitchin' Alfred or not. I'm for yes, he's for no, and as I've read the over 800 issues of Batman, and he's read, maybe, 1, I win.) Anyway—sometimes, you just need a little Alfred for perspective.

**Chapter 10: Morning Cookies, Afternoon Tea**

I should never be surprised to find hands sneaking in my cookie jar. It's happened since Master Bruce was a small boy, continued through his teen years, since Master Dick came to live with us, then Miss Barbara, occasionally Commissioner Gordon, Master Jason, Master Timothy, Miss Stephanie. The Black Canary is especially fond of my chocolate chip cookies, and even the Superman believes he can slip by me without notice. He is quite mistaken. One occasion, even Miss Selina Kyle, the Catwoman herself, attempted to steal from my cookie jar, but that is a tail—ahem—a tale for another time. I believe Leslie is the only one who consistently asks permission before engaging in cookie consumption at Wayne Manor.

But for the moment, the hand in my cookie jar at barely thirty minutes past seven in the morning belongs to one Miss Cassandra Cain, who is sitting at the counter with, heavens, the carton of milk and a cookie in one hand. She takes one despondant bite, and washes it down with a drink of milk before I can stop her.

"Miss Cassandra, what have I told you about glasses?" I say, striding into the kitchen. There's a sticky spot in the floor in front of the china cabinet that's catching my slippers. I'll have to clean that up after breakfast. I take the carton of milk away from her and pour her a glass before she manages to get any more cookie crumbs into the container. "They are aplenty in this house, and you have no fear of having to wash them."

"Sorry," she mumbles around a mouthful of oatmeal raisin. At least she hasn't yet found the chocolate chip I was saving for Leslie at the bottom yet.

"Now," I say, grasping the cookie jar, and moving it away from her, putting the lid back on with a ceramic clank. "Cookies are meant for afternoon snacks, and perhaps, on particularly troublesome occasions, mid-morning snacks, but as it is seven-thirty, it hardly qualifies as mid-morning, even by the strange hours that you keep. Would you like some breakfast?"

She shakes her head no, propping her chin up on her hands, having demolished the rest of the cookies. "It's been a bad morning."

It's only seven-thirty. If it's been a bad morning, then I would rather not face Master Bruce when he comes down without a full meal before him. I move to the refrigerator and pull out some eggs. The milk is already out, and I suppose the quick biscuits for the morning will have to have a few oatmeal raisin cookie crumbs in them. "And you came out here to comfort yourself in my cookie jar?"

She nods without removing her chin from her hands. "I didn't have any."

"Master Timothy is in possession of an entire batch at the moment," I point out to her. "And rarely have you ever had a night or morning so bad that you have felt the need to comfort yourself in the style of Black Canary and dig into my cookie jar. So this must not be the normal type of bad morning we are used to around here."

"It's not," she says grumpily. Someone must not have gotten much sleep, which surely must contribute to not having a good morning. "Last night wasn't fab—fabu—fab-ou-lous."

"Fabulous," I say gently, giving the biscuit batter a stir before dropping it onto the cookie sheet. "Here, put these in the oven please."

She finally did, taking the pan and sliding it into the oven. "Boys are weird."

"If you mean the entire male gender in general, I'm afraid I must take offense to that, Miss Cassandra," I say, whipping several eggs up into a bowl. She'll get hungry once she smells the scrambled eggs cooking, and I pour a little milk into the eggs. "If you mean the younger generation of your acquaintance, then I believe weird is a term that is not incorrect."

She scowls. "They are weird."

I glance at her out of the corner of my eye as I pour the eggs into the pan. If glares could cook, I would have no need for the skillet. "Are you going to talk about it, or should I guess?"

"Don't want to talk about it," she mumbles.

I turn to retrieve the plates from the cabinet, and the silverware from the drawer. It is only breakfast, so we will not eat in the main dining room, especially since Master Bruce will be in a hurry this morning. I hear the shower cut off upstairs, and he will be down in a few moments. "You've already made the statement that boys are weird. Apparently you want to talk about something."

She sighs. "I wish Babs was here. Or Black Canary. Or Ste—"

She catches herself, setting the plates down on the table. Miss Cassandra is a master of body language, but I am no mere apprentice myself, and I see the drop in her shoulders noticeably more, and I remember that Miss Stephanie's death is still grating on the nerves of everyone in our family, not just Master Bruce and Master Timothy.

"And there being no young ladies around, my cookies and I will have to suffice?" I ask, trying to lighten the mood.

She nods, setting the plates out, one for myself and one for Master Bruce. She hands one back to me with a setting of silverware. "Here, Alfred. I'm not that hungry."

I stare at her for a moment. Miss Cassandra is _never_ not hungry. I open up the cookie jar, and pull out one of the chocolate chip cookies that I'd been saving for Leslie. I don't think she'll mind—Leslie always has had a soft spot for the hurting, and for this child. "Another cookie then?"

She takes it and absently munches on it. "I'm worried about Tim."

"I don't think you're the only one, Miss Cassandra," I say, giving my eggs a stir. One of the keys to creating good scrambled eggs is to leave them alone, and not to stir anymore than necessary. "We are all quite concerned for his well-being."

"He's weird," she said, scuffing the toe of her boot against the floor. Of course, the sticky spot in front of the cabinet—her boots may have non-marking soles, but they are still leaving spots on the linoleum.

Ah. We have come to the root of Miss Cassandra's problem, then. Master Timothy has either acted suspiciously enough to cause her unease, in which case, I believe either Master Bruce or I would have noticed already, although we have tragically been wrong in cases like this before, or they have had some sort of a conflict which has left her feeling uncomfortable.

Master Bruce enters the kitchen. "Good morning, Alfred, Cassandra."

"Morning," Miss Cassandra mumbles around a mouthful of cookie, and I see Master Bruce look at me quizzically, because he is well acquainted with my rules regarding cookies during morning hours, especially those he knows I have reserved for Leslie.

"Everything all right?" he asks, his voice rumbling in a tone nearer the voice he uses for the Batman than for Bruce Wayne.

Miss Cassandra, however, is immune to most of Master Bruce's attempts at intimidation. "Yeah."

I put the eggs on a plate and pulled the biscuits from the oven, putting them on a plate with some bacon and set it before Master Bruce before preparing myself a plate. "Miss Cassandra has just made two interesting discoveries this morning. One, young men are 'weird' and two, Master Timothy particularly so."

I would imagine that I will have to send her home with a batch of cookies entirely her own in apology if the glare she just shot at me was any indication of her feelings. However, for once, I see something resembling amusement in Master Bruce's eyes, and any pique Miss Cassandra may have to suffer on account of that is worth it. "Cassandra," he says, "sit down."

She does as he asks, sullenly, and stares down at the edge of the table, picking at it with a fingernail. She's painted them black again (another disastrous fashion statement for which I blame the Black Canary and the Huntress), but she's been chewing on them, despite the nail care set she was given for Christmas. "Is there something wrong?" Master Bruce asks.

For being the Batman, Master Bruce can be woefully unskilled in the art of interrogation, especially in the manner of an unwilling subject. She stares down at her fingernails. "Not really."

He looks at her. "Is there anything wrong with Tim?"

She just keeps staring at her fingernails. "Not really."

"Cassandra," he says, and she finally looks up at him. "If something is wrong with Tim, we need to know now. I'm not going to take him off patrol, unless you think he's a danger to himself—"

"No!" she says, nearly shooting up out of her chair. "No—it's—" She searches around for the word for a moment. "It's not business. It's person. Personal." She sits back down in the chair, looking entirely miserable. "I wish Babs was here."

Master Bruce looks like he feels much the same way at this moment, trying to deal with a young woman in her late teens with little female help. "Did you two have a fight? I'll say something to Tim—"

"No!" She shoots back up out of her chair and away from the table. "No, don't say anything to him. We'll—we'll fix it, I promise. Just don't say anything to him."

She runs a hand through her hair and grabs her backpack with the other hand. "I'm going back to Blüdhaven."

"You just came to raid my cookie jar?" I ask, standing at the kitchen bar with a pan in hand.

She smiles at me, the first smile she's cracked the entire time she's been here. "Yeah. Cookies are good for breakfast."

She ducks out of the kitchen before I can say anything else.

xxxxxx

I pour the tea for Leslie, and offer her the cup. "Thank you, Alfred," she says with a smile, and takes a sip. "I love your tea."

I smile back at her. "Thank you. Would you like a cookie? I'm afraid Miss Cassandra was in them before eight this morning, but most of them escaped."

"Eight?" she says, leaning forward to take one of the cookies. "What in the world was she doing?"

"I believe she and Master Timothy have had a falling out of sorts," I say. "Most of what Master Bruce and I were able to obtain was that boys were strange, Master Timothy extremely so, and that she did not want any of this mentioned to him at all. Also that nothing was extremely urgent, and it was personal. He and I therefore concluded that they've had words and will need a day or so to apologize to one another."

Leslie is staring at me for a moment. "Stop. She started with boys were strange."

I take a sip of my tea. "I believe weird was the actual term. She seemed to wish that Miss Gordon was around to speak with. I wish there were more women around for her to speak with. I'm afraid I've not been a good father—I'm not sure I make any better a mother."

Leslie pats my hand. "You've done a good job as a father," she says comfortingly, even though we both know otherwise. "And if not with Bruce, then with Cassandra. She did come to you, didn't she?"

"My cookie jar," I say, taking Leslie's hand in mine.

She laughs. "But I think you and Bruce are falling into the age old trap of being men."

"I beg your pardon."

She laughs again. Leslie has a beautiful laugh, and it becomes harder to get out of her the more she works with us, so I am constantly attempting to sharpen my wit to keep her humour intact. "Alfred, if she's sulking about a boy, Timothy in particular, she wants chocolate and a mother figure, then they've had more than simply words. Cassandra loves Tim. I've seen it for a while. But I think Tim is in a dangerous place right now, and he will hurt her if he relies on her to get past this place now. And if she's looking for comfort in a cookie jar, he may already have."

I sit in silence for a moment. "My word."

Leslie pats my knee. "Cassandra is still very young. She still has years of learning to do that we all learned in grade school." She leans forward and kisses my forehead. "Just be there with a listening ear and a hug if she needs it and remember that daughters love like their fathers."

xxxxxx


	11. Chemical Reactions, Chemical Burns

**A/N:** In case you're wondering about the timeline for the last chapter or so, it goes kind of like this: the beginning of Chapter 9, Chapter 10, the end of Chapter 9, Chapter 11. Make sense, good, because I'm terribly confused. :P I didn't mean for it to go exactly like this…but it did anyway because once again…Cass will NOT behave. Action packed chapter up next.

As always, if you're ever interested in reading anything else I write from a myriad of other fandoms, you can find it archived on LiveJournal under the username of carrkicksdoor.

**Chapter 11: Chemical Reactions, Chemical Burns**

I hate chemistry.

I really hate people that don't listen to me.

But what I hate worst of all are people that don't listen to me in chemistry class and then cause the entire chemistry lab to smell like sulfuric acid.

So, for the record, I would just like to reiterate this: Not. My. Fault.

It doesn't help that I'm already jumpy and that every time I smell sulfur I have an uneasy feeling that the Joker is somewhere nearby.

So, no, my week is not off to a stellar start.

Add that to the fact that Cass has been avoiding me and Bruce and Alfred have been giving me what Dick refers to as "steaming space" and this week has generally sucked.

And it's only Monday.

I have no idea why they think I need to steam over Boomerang. I really don't. Yes, I'm pissed off about the whole thing in general, but it's not like I need people to leave me alone a couple of days.

Of course, Bruce could just be going through a typical Bruce phase and keeping Alfred busy and I'm too moody to see it as anything different.

Cass, on the other hand, is definitely avoiding me. I've seen her twice in the last two days, for a grand total of about five minutes. It's almost like it used to be when she first showed up and became Batgirl. She didn't talk, just listened. She just sits, and nods, and when I'm done speaking, she vaults off the roof and I almost don't know she's gone because it was like she was never there in the first place.

So even though I'm through with my patrol and I have nothing on my agenda for the rest of the night, I'm flying out here trying to lose myself in the cool air that's surrounding Blüdhaven and the adrenaline rush and that sinking feeling in my stomach that I feel every time I drop from a building, the same kind I get when I go down a hill on a roller coaster. Even after all these years, that feeling never goes away.

I give it up about three o'clock and go home. I almost feel like the Spectre himself is on my tail, and I've been trying to outrun him for days.

When I swing in through my window, there's an Englishman setting a plate with a sandwich on it on the table with a glass of milk, and there's a pile of clean laundry on the couch. "You're out rather late this evening, Master Timothy," Alfred observes.

I strip my mask off my face and toss it to my desk and unclasp my cape and hang it over the chair. Since Alfred's here, I actually fold the red Robin shirt before putting it on the couch and sitting down to the sandwich. I hadn't realized exactly how hungry I was until I saw that ham sandwich. "You're up late too, Alfred. What are you doing in Blüdhaven at this hour?"

I see the disapproval on his face. "I expected you to have been home earlier than this."

"I was busy."

"Miss Cassandra was in almost two hours ago," he says.

"Not all of us have Cass' speed at dispatching enemies," I say around a mouthful of sandwich.

"Perhaps she was just a bit tired," Alfred says, wiping the crumbs from the counter and turning to put them in the trash can. "She's been acting rather strangely the last day or so."

I nearly choke on my sandwich. "Sorry. Go ahead."

"Well, she was at the mansion a few days ago," Alfred said. "At eight in the morning and in my cookie jar, and all we could get out of her were that boys were weird."

Damn it.

"Huh," I say, picking at a piece of lettuce on the plate. Alfred asking me about Cass the night I was in Gotham makes sense, finally. He'd seen her that morning, and had suspected something was up, and was probably gauging my reaction. How did my personal life and my profession life get so screwed up?

Oh, yes, I let them mix, that's how.

"I don't suppose you know what's been bothering her," he says softly.

I've got that feeling again, the feeling of going down a hill on a roller coaster in the pit of my stomach, only it's not the feeling I get when I go down the hill. It's the feeling you get about three-quarters of the way up the hill when you realize you're getting ready to go flying down that hill and there's no way you're getting out of it.

But I know that my silence is assent, and Alfred knows now that whatever is bothering Cass is partly what's been bothering me the last few days and I just can't look at him.

I rub my hands over my head and just look at the counter. "I don't even know where to start," I say.

Alfred sits down next to me. "The beginning is usually a good place."

I look at my hands. There's a long scar running down the palm of my left hand where I accidentally grabbed a knife the wrong way once. "I don't think we've been apart more than absolutely necessary in the last week or so. Until the last few days."

"After Scarecrow attacked Miss Cassandra?" Alfred says.

I nod. "She'd been having nightmares. So, either she'd stay over here, or I'd stay over there. We got to know each other's couches pretty well. I don't know if she really needed me or not. It made me feel better."

"That would have been reason enough for Miss Cassandra to continue."

"And then we found Boomerang," I continue. "And Cass took me home and we watched infomercials. And she woke me up out of my own nightmares the next morning."

And this is the part that I can't confess. The part that keeps haunting me. The part that was the part that horrified me, because I couldn't believe I'd taken advantage of Cass that way, and yet the part that I would do anything to repeat.

"And?" Alfred gently prompts.

I swallow hard. "And then somehow she was in my arms and I was kissing her."

The tone in Alfred's voice is something between worry and amusement. "You look far too troubled for a young man with an interested young lady."

"I pushed her away," I say. "I can't do this to her, Alfred. Not now. Not in the midst of all—" I gesture around to everything around me, all the technological wonders that Bruce has provided for our crime-fighting. "—this. It's not fair to her." I sigh. "And it's not fair when I closed my eyes and I didn't see her there for a moment."

"Miss Stephanie?" Alfred says.

He's the only person who dares say her name in front of me. Except for Dana, who just doesn't remember. It's like he's the only person who can. And it kind of makes me feel better that he does say it, because while I know, logically, that Bruce and Dick and Cass and Babs and everyone else are remembering her when they try not to talk about her, when I hear her name out loud, it makes me think that someone remembers a poor young woman who once had a baby and made some mistakes and wanted nothing more than to be part of the legend.

No one says my father's name.

And I can't hold it in any more.

xxxxxx

It's six o'clock and I'm standing on Cass' front porch, my hands in my pockets and my heart in my throat. I need sleep and a shave, but this is more important.

She answers my knock in a long-sleeved t-shirt, a pair of those Bat signal boxers that Babs bought everyone for Christmas as a gag gift and bare feet. "Tim," she says, rubbing her eyes. Even right out of bed, she's beautiful.

I shift my weight. "I'm sorry," I blurt out. "For everything."

She looks at me for a moment. "I'm not mad at you."

Damn it, Tim, what the hell's the matter with you? "I know—I just—"

"Come in," she says, opening the door wider. "It's cold outside."

She fixes some tea in the kitchen and brings me a mug. I'm still standing in her living room, just looking around. The last time I was in here—is not what I really need to be thinking about. "Sit down," she says quietly, and I realize that getting the tea was more about collecting her own thoughts than anything else.

She sips her tea and just looks at me for a moment. "I had a long talk with Alfred tonight," I say quietly.

"I talked with him the other day," she says.

I smile. "I heard he talked and you raided the cookie jar."

She freezes. "He told you?"

"He was worried," I say, rubbing my eyes. "About both of us. He just said something had been bothering you and wanted to know if I knew what it was."

I look up at her, meeting her gaze for the first time since I was standing in her doorway. "And I did."

She looks away. "Did you tell him?"

I look down at my reflection in the tea. "Yeah."

She doesn't ask what Alfred said. I figure she'll either go to Gotham and find out, or call, or ask Alfred the next time he's in Blüdhaven. I don't know if he'll tell her or not, or if he'll send her back to me.

I just know that I'll remember his advice for the rest of my life.

Which is why I'm here right now.

"Promise me something," I say hoarsely.

She nods.

"If you catch me doing something as stupid as I did the other morning, you'll stop me," I say. When I see a tear in her eye, I realize that in my sleep-deprived state that came out all wrong. Cursing inwardly, I set my mug down and scoot over to her. "And by that, I meant walking out that door."

She turns her face to me and I try to smile. "I don't want to hurt you. Because above all, you're my friend. I don't want to use you."

"Tim—"

I put a finger to her lips. "But I didn't realize that I might have been hurting you by flying out that door either."

I drop my hand as I feel her lips move as she tries to form words. "So now what?"

"Give me some time," I ask. "I'm not going anywhere."

She looks down at her tea, and then back at me. "Okay. I'm not going anywhere either."

I don't think things are ever going to be back the way they were. We're too far past that. But this is better than where we were. And from the look on her face, I think she'll wait.

I lean forward and kiss her forehead. "I've got to go get ready for school. Sorry I woke you up."

She shakes her head. "It's okay."

She opens the door for me to leave, and I walk into the Blüdhaven streets, for the first time, feeling like I could actually smile.


End file.
